The Word Cloud

Hi everyone! Not really a blog as such, but I felt I had to share my concerns with you all.

So I made a comment, and someone made a comment on my comment, and that someone was called Gerry. So I thought, well perhpas I should add Gerry as a friend, I mean it's only polite.

I tracked the man back to his page and clicked on the 'add friend' link - and was rewarded with a most peculiar message:

"Are you sure you want to ask Gerry to be your friend?" The computer asked. "WHY?" I suddenly wanted to ask. "What has he done? WHO has he done? What do you know, computer, that I don't? Do I even want to know? How can I make such a pivotal decision when I am clearly not in possession of the full facts? Is this man a cult leader? A false beard salesman? Will he sweet talk me one minute, then the next I'm waking up with a duffel bag over my head, tied to a chair in my own living room whilst my treasures are being stolen around me? Will he hypnotize me? Bewitch me? Will I spend the rest of my days believing I'm a camel, flapping my lips and spitting on tourists? Or will he just vanish from the pub half a drink before his round? Are my wives and daughters safe? Do aliens exist - AND IS HE ONE OF THEM?

TELL ME computer, damn you! I CAN'T TAKE NOT KNOWING!

So anyway, I took the plunge and clicked 'yes'. If around the middle of next week my profile picture changes to a picture of my severed head being held aloft by an axe wielding maniac, then you'll know the computer was right.

I mean, who really knows anyone these days?

Love
Tony 

(First ever attempt at poetry, I've never been taught anything to do with writing aside from comments from you guiz, so comment away! help me.)


My Fair Maiden by Andrew Williams

You are a snowflake
Naturally beautiful and perfectly formed
Yet due to fear and peer-
pressure;
You paint yourself orange,
Ruining it all.

Here they come
No longer the gallant knights of old
Any gentlemen here would be a rare sight to behold
Instead of brightly polished armour it's shadowy North Face,
Not respecting you enough to remove their hands from their pants
'Ay girl gizza chew!'
The nearest lad shouts aimed at you
As you walk by with your friend
She snaps at you
'What are you doing? He obviously likes you, lets talk to them!'
'I don't want to' you protest in vain
'Don't be such a baby, time for you to grow up!'
She about-turns and marches off to greet them,
You reluctantly follow suit.

Yet you're soon to fall for them
Giving in to their assault,
Victim to the 'bad boy' image they live to uphold
Each one a wannabe Eminem
They ask for your number,
Bashfully, you hand them your phone.

They call you the next day;
Inviting you to a party on the park with a few of their 'mates',
Not wanting to offend or appear immature,
You accept
And arrive later with your friend from the day before.

A drunken mess of a night is soon to ensue;
Catalysed by a fight between the two most drunken of these fools
They wage war on each other 
All for your love
Fuelled by gallons of Stella and cheap 'Sammy Boo'
The victor strips your emotions away
Robbing you of your innocence despite your reluctance
Then leaves you cold and alone
On this park bench
A home away from home

It's all just a game to them,
They compete to see how many girls they can destroy
They laugh and they cheer;
But I smile to myself, I see the irony of it
The winner of their game is the real loser here.

I've put all the pics of Clouders who will be at York at the weekend on to an A4 page, plus the names of the other attendees with no pics. I'm hoping it will help in the recognition process. Trouble is you can't upload a Word page to the Cloud. So, if anyone wants a copy, you can access it in Googledocs, at this link:
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B0BOimhKuoL5MWExYTQxZmItOGYzZi00NWE4LWJmOTktNzJhOWExMGM4ZmE4&hl=en_GB

You can print it out if you click on the blue 'print' immediately above the page and then select File/print as usual, in the new window that opens.
see you there, everyone.

Do you prefer the darker side of crime? Then Blood and Bones is the place for you. Post extracts for review, discuss true crime, recommend your favourite published crime fiction or interesting crime/research links. There's one thing that's certain here - the fluffy kitten has run out of lives.

 
From a period beginning in the mid eighties, I started collecting funny faxes.  These were occasionally humorous one-pagers sent between workers in different offices.  One of the originals that you may have seen and still recall was titled The Rules – a list of things the male was expected to do/not do, according to a rather demanding female.  Another was a crude sketch of a rowing boat with a cox calling through a megaphone at eight rowers.  Beneath it was a second boat on which you inserted the name of your company.  This boat had eight coxes shouting through a megaphone at one rower.  After a couple of years I had enough of these to make into a stocking-filler-type book, but someone beat me to it by a few weeks.

It wasn’t long after that the internet started to blossom and I was in on the act with IRC and then email when it came along.  It took me a while, but I finally recognised that you could entertain friends and colleagues with the same kind of stuff that jokers faxed to each other.  In seconds, you could send it to everyone you had an email address for, and they could easily forward it on to everyone they had an email address for.  Eeh, i’nt technology grand.

In 1997 I contributed to an email titled You Know You’re Living In The ‘90s When...  I sent it to the folks in my contact list who I thought would appreciate it.  A couple of years later the email found its way back to me.  A few times after that, various incarnations of the email found their way back to me, including You Know You’re Living In The ‘00s When...  Despite the update, my contribution had remained intact word-for-word.

Judging by the lengthy list of forwards, a fair few people had read each of these emails and forwarded them on to friends around the world.  There were hundreds of email addresses on each chain, representing just one route through to me.  How many other chains through to other people were there?  How many people had read and forwarded these emails?

A few days ago I posted a blog on here called You Know You’re A Writer When...

http://www.thewordcloud.org/members/profile/114/blog-view/you-know-youre-a-writer-when_1680.html

It doesn’t have the same universal appeal, so I haven’t forwarded it on to anyone by email.  Our Cloud community was as far as it would go. 

Or so I thought. 

Then Weens suggested that Writing Magazines might be interested.  I hadn’t considered this, but I thought it was a good idea, so I approached a few. 

The Editor of a leading Writers' Magazine has just responded.  Someone’s already posted a link to The Word Cloud blog on that mag’s forum, so he was already aware of it and mulling over whether he was going to use it.  And there was me thinking this was a Cloud where our shenanigans remained pretty much just amongst us.  It appears that others elsewhere are watching us.  The Ed’s asked one of his in-house writers to mention the You Know You’re A Writer When... blog and publish a link to it in the next edition.  That means no actual publication credits in the magazine and certainly no dosh, but you know what?  I’m secretly pleased regardless. 

If you were wondering if anyone was ever going to notice your writing genius, there is a sliver of hope.  The Cloud is attracting attention from outside.  (Or should that be beneath?)  Sometimes you just don’t know... your writing could have been read by a multitude already.  So are you distraught that people might be reading and forwarding your work without your knowledge as you remain unpublished and without a pot to piss in?  Or are you excited by the idea that potentially tens of millions could read your work in an email chain you, as yet, know nothing about?

Information from various sources suggests that out of about 2,000 manuscript submissions the average Publisher or Agent receive each year, only one or two make it to publication.  There are just over 2,000 members on Word Cloud: the number above this figure possibly represents about the amount who are published and/or pros.  Assuming that each of the unpublished members submits an average of one book each in the next twelve months, you don’t have to be a mathemagician to realise that only one or two of us will become published in the next year.

That’s a disheartening number. 

Of course, I hope that the standard and quality I see about this Cloud means that there is a higher success rate from amongst us, but realistically it’s not going to be much higher regardless of this.

For many months I’ve been thinking about how these pitiful odds could be improved in our favour. The simple answer I’ve had from the beginning is obvious: Word Cloud member collaboration. All of the talent, experience, skills, contacts and characteristics required to see a book through to successful publication exists right here amongst the members of this Cloud. The difficult part is how to harness these things in a collective effort that works. The writer is most often a solitary creature, or if not, most likely a creature who plies their craft in a solitary way.

However, to our advantage the Cloud exists, and it has united us, for the most part. Every day I see strangers and friends help and advise each other, and this enthuses me. But are we not presented with the best of opportunities to go a step further? Is it not worth a shot for several Cloud members to pool their collective abilities and work on one piece together?

Of course, I accept there are many reasons why it wouldn’t work, but I am of the ilk that would rather try and fail, than not try at all. I suspect that I am not alone in this.

Crows,wonderful crows.I`ve been feeding them for years.Quite a few generations have shared my food with me,bringing their young each season or so to say “hello” to the human they have checked-out for years.Took me an age of feeding them before they would allow a catching of my eye,and not noisily head for the trees. I sometimes ponder who runs this cross species relationship.They sit on my fence at the same time each day and caw for attention.If tardiness takes my time then they will caw in union,drawing closer to my house door.Life reaches out to life.The responsibility for my actions is understood and,so far,is still enjoyed.Crows love cheese;dripping and bread, and oily fish. I wonder how they see me: a gourmet god or a slave and patsy.Does it matter.
They get the food and live as Corvine kings,I receive their tolerance and tentative acceptance.Service keeps my feet on the ground while they fly free and high above my human world.It is so good to see.I envy the wild and untamed crows.

the are the dedicated group sent from above.
they are the new generation programmed to praise the almighty God !
www.asaphfamilychoir.socialgo.com

I've now reached 48 hours as a member.

I've got a bit of a break coming up. This day fortnight I'll be unpacking in Vegas, halfway up the Stratosphere. Not sure, though, if I'll risk the world's highest rolercoaster that overhangs the roof of said resort. I'll be taking in a few shows and a multitude of sights before flying on to San Antonio to pay hommage to Davy Crocket, Jim Bowey and all the lads who defended the famous Alamo for 30 days and held back Generalisimo Santa Anna long enough for the Texans to  get their act together and win independence for the lone-star state.

Then it's on by Greyhound all the way across to Houston where I'm booked to do the behind-the-scenes tour of the Space Centre including lunch in the astronauts' restaurant  - Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters for two, please.

Next, I catch the Amtrak and run all the rest of the way through Texas and on into Louisiana, destination New Orleans, for the run up to Mardi Gras. Then it's fly home again. Should be fun.

The point in saying all this is to ask if any of you nice Yankee Cloudsters hale from Las Vegas, San Antonio, Houston or New Orleans and would like to meet up and say Hi.

Maybe see you soon.